


my knight in shinning armour

by elioolivercmbyntrash



Series: Elio & Oliver one shots [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: CMBYN - Freeform, Call me by your name, Elio/Oliver - Freeform, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Sick Character, Sickfic, cw vomit, emerging relationship, i adore sickfics ok, they have feelings for each other they just haven't admitted to it yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23874886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elioolivercmbyntrash/pseuds/elioolivercmbyntrash
Summary: Elio gets sick at breakfast. Oliver would love to be the one to look after him, but he's known the kid for less than a week, and all Elio wants is his mother. He does at one point, however, refer to Oliver as his knight in shining armour.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman, emerging relationship - Relationship
Series: Elio & Oliver one shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1720645
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70





	my knight in shinning armour

**Author's Note:**

> i don't own these characters. they don't belong to me at all.
> 
> The Heptameron by Marguerite of Navarre is the book Annella reads to Elio & Samuel and where the iconic quote is it "better to speak or die" comes from.

Elio suddenly pushed his chair away from the table, causing the whole thing to shake. 

“I don’t feel -” Elio gagged, vomiting all down his Talking Heads t-shirt and over the patio. 

“Oh, Elio sweetheart,” said Annella, extinguishing her cigarette and rushing to her son. “Let’s get you inside.” Elio retched, more vomit splattering the floor, his face drenched in sweat. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I was fine and then it...it came from nowhere.”

“It happens sometimes,” Samuel said. “It’s not something you can help.”

Elio looked over at Oliver. His blue eyes were darting from the pool of vomit on the floor to Elio to the table again. He pushed his plate away. Elio wanted to go and hide in the bed in his parent’s room, which he hadn’t done since he’d been little and had tried to hide from the monsters in his cupboard. 

“Tesoro, it’s alright,” Annella said. “You need to change out of that shirt.”

“But the mess -”

“We’ll get it cleaned up,” said Samuel. 

As Elio was ushered into the villa by his mother, he saw Oliver excuse himself and head off. He looked at the vomit that he’d managed to get down himself - how had he got it on his legs and feet? He wiped his eyes with his fists.

“What happened?” Mafalda asked. “Is Elio not well?”

“He’s vomited on the patio. Sammy will clean it up, Mafalda.”

“No, that’s my job,” Mafalda said. 

Elio knelt by the toilet as his mother ran him a bath. He was not able to get the way Oliver had looked at him after he’d vomited out of his head. Oliver had been disgusted with him. His body had, yet again, let him down. He’d wanted to take Oliver down to his spot today, maybe lie in the grass for a few hours and read, or talk. Elio put his head over the toilet. His whole body shook as his stomach contracted, forcing its contents through his mouth.

His mother knelt beside him and rubbed his back. “I’m here, Elio. You’ll feel better once you’re done.” 

Elio gasped for breath as he continued to heave. Once he had finished, he sat back against the bidet, feeling the cool porcelain on his sweaty back. “I feel so sick, Mamma,” he said. 

Annella wiped his forehead with a cool cloth. “I’m here, Elly Belly. I’m here. Rinse your mouth out, and then get into the bath. That’ll help your fever.”

Elio fell asleep on the couch in the living room, his head resting in his mother’s lap. 

“How is he?” Oliver asked.

“Well, he hasn’t vomited in over half an hour,” Annella said. 

“Poor kid.” He watched Annella stroke her son’s head, as she looked at him full of love. So much love. Oliver imagined himself rubbing Elio’s back as he hurled, imagined himself where Annella was now, Elio fast asleep, head in his lap. But Elio was still a kid. He wouldn’t want some random American who’s been staying with the family for less than one week caring for him when he was sick. “Well, later,” Oliver said; he had a lot of work that he needed to get done today.

Elio sat up, making Annella jump.

“I thought you were asleep,” she said.

“Bathroom,” Elio muttered, bringing his hand to his mouth as he ran to the downstairs toilet, making it just in time. Tears were streaming down his face as he heaved, his stomach muscles shaking and taut, his throat burning. 

“I’m here,” Annella said. “I’m here.” She rubbed his back and with the other hand, held his head. “You’ll hurt your neck if you keep throwing your head back like that, tesoro.”

When he was done, Elio fell into his mother’s embrace, sobbing. “Please rub my tummy,” he said. His mother did not get the chance to do so; seconds later, Elio had stuck his head in the toilet bowl, panting as he tried to catch his breath.

Later in the day, as the sun was setting, Elio was on the bathroom floor again. His cheeks were red, covered in little petechiae, his face and neck and back drenched in sweat. His lips were dry and cracked. He was barely able to keep any water down. Mafalda had made her famous chicken soup, which she believed cured all ills. Elio had eaten a couple of spoonfuls before throwing it up in the kitchen sink. 

Elio was clinging to his mother, relying on her strength to hold him up so that he could throw up water, and then bile, because there was nothing else left in his stomach. “When will it stop!” he gasped.

“Soon, tesoro. Soon,” Annella said, wiping the sweat from Elio’s forehead with a cool cloth. What else was she supposed to say? She didn’t know when it would stop and she wasn’t sure why it hadn’t stopped yet. Elio looked exhausted. His hair was stuck to his forehead, bags under his eyes, his cheeks were sunken, his skin blotchy. He had called her ‘Mummy’ several times, desperately, unlike the tone he usually used when he asked for things he knew he wouldn’t get, no matter how much pouting he did. 

Samuel popped his head round the bathroom door. “Do we need to call a doctor?”

“I don’t think so,” Annella said. “Darling, I think Elio should share with me tonight. I won’t sleep unless I can keep an eye on him.”

“Of course. I’ll go and get him some more water.” 

Oliver helped the Perlmans get Elio up the stairs. Had Elio been more conscious, he would have been mortified, but he was delirious with tiredness. “This man is my knight in shining armour,” Elio said, dream-like. “Look at how tall he is.” 

“You need sleep, sweetheart,” Annella said, laughing. Samuel chuckled. Elio always had a flair for the dramatic. Oliver chuckled with them, but it hurt. He wanted to be Elio’s knight in shining armour. Once they’d safely got Elio to his parent’s bedroom, Oliver lay wide awake, listening to the professor’s snores from next door.

“Will I ever find my knight in shining armour, Maman? Like, my real knight, or princess?” Elio asked. 

“I believe you will,” replied Annella, as she bathed him with a sponge on the bed . “One day. You need to sleep now, darling. Let's see where we were up to in The Heptameron, shall we?"


End file.
